


"Don't Say Goodbye" + "Take Me Instead"

by Agib



Series: Whumptober 2020 [7]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Blackmail, Gen, Guilt, Kidnapping, Missing Persons, Threats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:40:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26885257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Agib/pseuds/Agib
Summary: “And you were there, every night. You would stand there and say,take me instead. Every night. I’m only listening to you, Spencer.”
Relationships: Spencer Reid & The BAU Team
Series: Whumptober 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945771
Comments: 8
Kudos: 147
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	"Don't Say Goodbye" + "Take Me Instead"

**Author's Note:**

> <3 for my beta and freind, Dani, her Ao3 is: [Starsandsupernovae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsandsupernovae)  
> And her gorgeous tumblr: [@reid-and-writing](https://reid-and-writing.tumblr.com/)

“Where’s Reid?” Is the first thing that comes out of Hotch’s mouth, Monday morning.

  
  


“Yeah, I don’t know, he’s never this late,” JJ responds. It wasn’t the whole truth, when Spencer had been struggling with Dilaudid he was late periodically and sporadically, but none of them like remembering that time.

  
  


“Sick?” Derek asks.

  
  


“No, he can’t be. He was fine on Friday night, he asked me to go out,” Penelope says.

  
  


\----

  
  


_ It was six and Penelope was fed up with her ceaseless file sifting. Transferring paper reports to digital was menial and probably the most boring thing she could be doing with her time. _

  
  


_ So, when Spencer knocked on her office door, she’s more than willing to listen to his proposal. _

  
  


_ “Hey,” he says. _

  
  


_ “Hiya boy-genius, what can I do ya for?” He smiles loosely, picking at the strap of his side bag nervously before warming up. _

  
  


_ “I found this new bakery, um, they make Tardis cookies,” Penelope’s eyes glisten in interest. “And I was wondering if you’d wanna swing by after work today, w - with me, I mean. I have the box sets you got me for Christmas, we can binge the earlier seasons afterwards?” _

  
  


_ “That sounds great! I had such a slow day, ugh,” she complains, scooping up her purse happily. “So what’s this place called?” _

  
  


_ “Mitchy’s,” Spencer answered, a little more pep in his walk now that Penelope had looped them arm in arm. _

  
  


_ “Oh!” She says hurriedly. “No… I just looked them up for directions and they close at three, we might have to raincheck and grab them for a late lunch on Monday instead.” _

  
  


_ “Oh, um - yeah. That’s cool, my bad,” Spencer murmurs. _

  
  


_ “Not your bad,” Penelope promises. “Cookie store’s bad.” _

  
  


\----

  
  


“He did?” Emily asks, looking perplexed when Penelope nodded. “He asked me too.”

  
  


\----

  
  


_ Emily is pulling apart a pen when Spencer slides his chair into the corner of her desk, smiling a little. _

  
  


_ “There’s a new play at one of the local theatres tonight. Would you be interested in seeing it with me?” He implores. “Please? It’s in Russian and nobody else is gonna want to.” _

  
  


_ Emily ponders for a moment before flicking the spring of her pen at him. _

  
  


_ “What time?” She asks. _

  
  


_ “Half an hour,” he says. Emily screws up her face, looking disappointed. _

  
  


_ “Oh, I have to pick up Sergio from the cattery as soon as work finishes.” She frowns, genuinely disappointed. _

  
  


_ “That’s okay, another time,” Spencer says. _

  
  


\----

  
  


Derek cocks his head, looking equally as confused.

  
  


“Same here…” He mutters. 

  
  


\----

  
  


_ “Need a ride?” He asks, swinging keys around his finger and watching the kid shovel his papers into the finished basket. _

  
  


_ “Um…” Spencer starts, looking around as the others file out into the hall. “Did you wanna stay over? I still haven’t seen that - what’s the one - Die Hard?” _

  
  


_ Derek groans, running a hand over his face. _

  
  


_ “Jeez, we really need to get you educated on your staple movies.” Spencer perks up, smiling giddily. _

  
  


_ “So, is that a yes?” He asks excitedly. Derek glances down at his watch and sighs. _

  
  


_ “Look, Spence, seriously I’d love nothing more. But I gotta get Clooney from my neighbours kid, he dog-sits. In all honesty I’m totally going to conk out after that. I’m shattered.” _

  
  


_ “That’s alright, I understand,” Spencer says reasonably. _

  
  


_ “I’m sorry, kid. I’ll still drop you home.” Spencer waves him off and gestures to a second pile of paperwork he hadn’t noticed earlier. _

  
  


_ “I might stay a bit longer, don’t wanna hold you up.” _

  
  


\----

  
  


“JJ?” Morgan asks. The woman nods. “Hotch, Rossi?”

  
  


“He didn’t ask to go out but he did try staying extra late, until I sent him home before he overworked himself,” Hotch says. “He could be sick, or slept through his alarms,” he shrugs.

  
  


He seems calm for the moment, but both JJ and Morgan are particularly on edge. Spencer was the most punctual, perpetually early ones of them all. The only time he isn’t is when something’s gone wrong.

  
  


The dilaudid, his car breaking down, getting trapped in the subway when it has maintenance issues. But then again, for two of those three issues he’d called or at least tried to call, so that Hotch would know to start without him.

  
  


“It’s a paperwork day, we’ll wait ‘till later then if he still isn’t picking up one of you can check his apartment,” Hotch defuses. 

  
  


Penelope squirms in her seat, looking increasingly worried.

  
  


“Alright,” Derek relents. “Guess we’ll just wait and see.”.

  
  


They pack up and go back to their desks, Penelope hanging around the bullpen instead of her office. Emily seemed to be on the same level as Hotch and Rossi, understanding how unlikely this was, but doubtful that there were any major troubles. JJ and Derek were a step above, nervous and unable to keep their minds off the unusual late behaviour. Penelope though, well, Penelope was already talking about ‘having a bad feeling’ and ‘just knowing something is off.’

  
  


It hits eleven and enough of them are worried to convince Hotch that Derek should go investigate to see if Spencer had really just overslept or managed to get himself hurt somehow.

  
  


They wait eagerly, and when Derek returns looking more concerned than ever, it only worsens the situation.

  
  


“I took pictures of everything, used my spare key when he didn’t answer,” he explains. He holds up the phone to show off the photos.

  
  


His gun, badge and side bag have been neatly laid out against the top of his bed. It’s eerily similar to how Spencer described Gideon’s belongings being left at the cabin for him to find.

  
  


Though, there’s also a picture of his phone, a stack of books that look new, and his wallet left on the bedside table.

  
  


The first picture was worrying but not necessarily incriminating, whereas the second definitely proved that he didn’t leave entirely with the intention of not coming back, nor did he leave planning on buying something or going somewhere.

  
  


“Morgan, Prentiss, I want you to go back and gather everything you can for evidence and testing,” Hotch orders. “Garcia I want as much security footage as possible, follow him home, pinpoint when he left and where he went or would have gone. I want anything out of the ordinary from his phone, anything not work related.” Hotch holds up a hand, facing JJ now. “I want you here on standby in case we put out an APB, for now though, call as many of his contacts as you can.”

  
  


The three of them split into their respective groups to hurry along with the given tasks. They worked just as fast as any given case, but it felt slow all the same.

  
  


The only fingerprints that came back from Spencer’s belongings were his own, JJ didn’t find anything from her calls to Spencer’s contact list, but Penelope unearthed something monumental.

  
  


“Sir,” she thanks as everyone seats themselves just like they had that morning. “I have three things, and Rossi’s already working on putting an APB out for our suspect.”

  
  


“We’ve got a suspect?” Derek asks hurriedly.

  
  


“Give her a minute,” Hotch directs.

  
  


Penelope turns to place a speaker down, looking at Derek nervously.

  
  


“I’m going to play a series of messages dating from Monday morning to two months ago that were left on his receiver.”

  
  


The entire team sits quietly, listening to the play through of all the messages. Everything Penelope pulled from the receiver is a vague form of threat. There are promises to be seeing and meeting him again soon. The several weeks leading up to Friday became increasingly demanding and violent in nature. 

  
  


They all look horrified, while Penelope and Hotch who have heard this all before only look analytical and disgusted.

  
  


“Why the hell didn’t he talk to us about this?!” Derek yells, scooting his chair backwards to lean his forehead against the cool surface of the table.

  
  


“That - that’s um, everything stopping him was outlined in Friday’s message…” Penelope says quietly.

  
  


**November eighteenth, at six-eleven AM:**

  
  


_ “Do not mention any of this to your co-workers, I have more than one pair of eyes, Spencer. Them and their loved ones’ lives can be put at risk if you want to try and avoid me.” _

  
  


“Christ,” Emily exclaims. “What’s the chance that was just a bluff?”

  
  


“If - if he knew that Friday was going to be - that he was in danger, why wouldn’t he have been more emotional. You know he’s bad at goodbyes, he would've been upset leaving us,” JJ points out. Her eyes are watery and the team can already tell this is going to hit her hard if they don't find Spencer soon. 

  
  


“That’s the thing,” Penelope says, he had rules, guys. Listen to this.”

  
  


_ “Don’t give your team a heads up. Do not act any different than normal. Don’t say goodbye.” _

  
  


\----

  
  


His wrist is rubbed raw by the time they reach Montreal. Being cuffed to a door handle for over twenty four hours can do that to you, apparently.

  
  


He  _ would _ ask questions, but after determining how unstable his abductor was, he gave up on the idea.

  
  


_ “Why’re you doing this, Nathan? You wanted to get better.” _

  
  


_ “I was getting worse again, after being institutionalised. I kept having these dreams about… about slicing them up, it was amazing and it terrified me.” There’s excitement in his voice, pure and unbidden.  _

  
  


_ His tone is breathy and light, as though he’s reimagining the dreams. “And you were there, every night. You would stand there and say,  _ take me instead.  _ Every night. I’m only listening to you, Spencer.” _

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is [@ag-ib](https://ag-ib.tumblr.com/)
> 
> my heart goes <3<3<3 when anyone sends asks


End file.
